That Day
by The Last Letter
Summary: He had an hour. And in one hour it would be 100 years. He finally thought that he was strong enough to face the terrible memory. And then it would be time. DXS TXJ AU One-shot Rated for safety.


Tears escaped the wizened eyes, falling like diamonds onto gnarled old that showed years of work too hard for the body. The ancient hands clenched into fists. The withered vody, battered and hardened by the years slumped in the dusy armchair. Breath filled his lungs in a torturous way.

He had been tortured like this for almost one hundred years. Every step. Blink. Tear. Sigh. Even the cobwebs blowing in the dusty long forgotten attic reminded him of what he had lost. He had lost his heart a hundred years ago in an hour. He had lived throughyears of pain, and he was going to spend this last hour remembering. He would pull those dusty memories from long untouched corners of his mind.

***

That day the sky had been blue, white fluffly clouds dotting the horizon. The grass had waved in the slight spring breeze. The breeze had been warm as it ruffled his clothes and hair.

She had come down the street glaring like a destroying angel. "It's _Saturday._" She'd growled. "You'd better have woken me up for something good."

"I know," He'd sighed, expecting this attitude. "Te ghosts are rallying and I need you toe be with me, to make sure that you're safe."

"I don't need your protection, but thanks for your concern, and, was it really nessacary to wake me up _this_ early on a _Saturday_?" She insisted.

"Early? Girl, it's almost noon!" He scoffed.

"Face it," She started, poking him in the chest, "if you could you'd still be asleep."

She smiled as he gave her the victory. "If I could, but we bothi know I can't."

"Right, but see, I can." She gave a laugh as she spun on her heel. He watched the way her body moved as she walked farther away.

A bright flash of light from his left caught his eye. He spun toward the glowing green, and gasped. The ghosts were heading for the town, and there were more than he'd even seen! They paraded forward with Vlad in the lead.

"Everyone!" He shouted to the ghosts, "Find something to bring down Danny Phantom. And destroy everything in your path!" The ghost broke ranks, disappearing every which way. The people of Amity were smart enough to start leaving town. He saw his own parents go driving by with his sister screaming, "FIND DANNY!" They ignored her and kept driving.

Even the cops were hightailing it out of there. The people got away, except for him and- A high pitched scream broke the silence. She had started running back toward him, realizing the danger she was in, but, she hadn't made it in time. Vlad had grabbed her.

"Ahh, a prisoner." He growled, and disappeared, taking her with him. Buildings were exploding all around him from the havoc the other ghosts were wrecking, but he ignored them all. He rose into the air after turning to Phantom form and sped off after her. He searched everywhere he could think of.

But he could not find her.

Finally, tired and broken he went back to his house. Fentonworks had remained untouched, while everything else had been destroyed. The ghosts were gone. He climbed over the Nasty Burger sign and opened his front door. And there he was. With her.

"Nice of you to join us," Said the old ghost pleasantly.

"Let her go." The words were threatening, but they had no effect on the old one.

"I'm afraid I cannot do that. Do you know why I cannot do that?" It was clearly a rhetorical question, so he kept his mouth closed and let Vlad rant. "I cannot do that because I want you to pay for your mistakes. Since killing you would just turn you full ghost and you'd be just as much as a nuisance as ever, she'll pay for your mistakes, as will your heart."

The old man moved toward her. Vlad kicked the stool out from under her. He could only watch in horror as the rope around her neck grew taunt. Her slim hands grabbed the rope, desperatley trying to pull herself up, but her fingers slipped, and she hung there, swinging slightly, her life slipping away. And he could only watch.

Her last breath came and went, and she was just a shell of a life. Something that was no longer needed.

The people returned to Amity, and the place had been rebuilt, but he could no longer enter his own house, because everytime he did, he the image of her, swinging, black hair moving slightly. He made his own house on the other end of town.

***

The old face turned to the clock. The hand ticked as it made its way toward the twelve, toward midnight, the time that he killed her. The wrinkles in his face relaxed as he leaned against the back of the chair. The old grandfather clock chimed midnight, and the name escaped the quivering old lips, "Sam." The name was a blessing, an intentional taboo for one hundred years, but no longer.

The man rose from the body he had lived in so long. The brown, old, wrinkled, pockmarked skin turned clear, pale. The silver horseshoe shape of hair turned black and full with edges of white. The faded pale eyes turned an icy blue, with flecks of green. He floated above the floor, and he waited. For what he was not sure, but he was waiting. He had lived one hundred and fourteen years, and it was time. Time to go home.

A blinding light filled the room, but it did not reveal golden gates or a place filled with beautiful people with angel's wings. Instead, it revealed heaven. A wide grassy green field. He saw his sister and her husband, Tucker. He saw his parents. But they were faraway, as though he was looking through water to see them. He knew that this is where he was headed. And there was the girl to take him there.

Time had not changed her. Her long black hair danced in the breeze, the amythest eyes as alive as even, and her slim hand reached down for his. He took it gratefully, and now, now it was time.

It was time to truly go home.


End file.
